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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Feral who wrote (192160)	7/19/2006 3:34:32 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Keith, You want to keep mucking things up. You symbolize the failures of this administration. You have little knowledge of the region but you want to play with its future based on that limited knowledge. Same as bush admin did. They won the war in iraq but paid no attention to the aftermath. The old white guys got too old too fast. Rummy is still his old arrogant self and cheney spends most of the time shooting himself in the foot. And Rove is too interested in getting political advantage to allow anything to be done to reduce casualties in iraq. Your silly talk is getting us nowhere. The serious posters on this thread from Hawk to Chris to Nadine to Sun do a great job in elaborating on the choices we have. Mike

To: Keith Feral who wrote (192160)	7/19/2006 3:47:42 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

The US could really tip the scales if they pushed a Sunni revolt to assume control of the government. That might be a "great idea", except for the fact that most of the Sunnis in Syria have been radicalized by the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas. The Alawite are a definite minority, but have ruled Syria with an iron fist for the past 40 years. Hafez Al-Assad, in putting down a rebellion in 1982, killed tens of thousands of adherents to the MB at Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood uprising Many conservative Sunnis considered the Alawites a heretical breakaway sect from Islam, and resented being ruled by "Alawite-Muslim" politicians. Al-Assad's embrace of secularism and his alliance with the Soviet Union (intensely unpopular after its occupation of Afghanistan in 1979) increased tension between the government and the Sunni religious leadership. In the late 1970s, religious dissent became more and more pronounced, and the oppressive policies of the state pushed non-Islamist dissenters to join forces with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The religious fundamentalists portrayed the Syrian ruler as an "enemy of Allah", an "Atheist" or even "a Maronite", a Christian sect whose militias was at that time fighting Sunnis in Lebanon. Step by step, the underground opposition turned violent, into a low-level insurrection, and the harsh military reprisals further escalated violence. Throughout the early 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood staged a series of bomb attacks against the government and its officials, including a nearly successful attempt to assassinate al-Assad on June 26, 1980, during an official state reception for the president of Mali. As a machine gun salvo missed him, al-Assad ran to kick a hand grenade aside, and his bodyguard sacrificed himself to smother the explosion of another one. Surviving with only light damages, al-Assad's revenge was swift and merciless: only hours later many hundreds of imprisoned Islamists were murdered in a massacre carried out by his brother Rifaat al-Assad in Tadmor Prison[1]. Calls for vengeance grew within the brotherhood, and bomb attacks increased in frequency. Events culminated with a general insurrection in the conservative Sunni town of Hama in February 1982. Islamists and other opposition activists proclaimed Hama a "liberated city" and urged Syria to rise up against the "infidel". Brotherhood fighters swept the city of Ba'thists, breaking into the homes of government employees and suspected supporters of the regime, killing about 50. In the eyes of al-Assad, this was total war. The army was mobilized, and Hafez again sent Rifaat's special forces and Mukhabarat agents to the city. After encountering fierce resistance, they used artillery to blast Hama into submission. After a two-week battle, the town was securely in government hands again. Then followed several weeks of torture and mass executions of suspected rebel sympathizers, killing many thousands, known as the Hama massacre. Robert Fisk, who was in Hama shortly after the massacre, estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 citizens were killed, but according to Thomas Friedman Rifaat later boasted of killing 38,000 people. Most of the old city was completely destroyed, including its palaces, mosques, ancient ruins and the famous Azzem Palace mansion. After the Hama uprising, the Islamist insurrection was broken, and the Brotherhood since operates in exile. Government repression in Syria hardened considerably, as al-Assad had spent in Hama any goodwill he previously had left with the Sunni majority, and now was compelled to rely on pure force to stay in power. en.wikipedia.org So, you can see.. Replacing the Ba'thists in Syria might just wind up netting us another Hamas style victory. I believe it is inevitable that this will happen, but I think its a battle that is best fought in future years. Hawk